I can think of a variety of ways in which drugs are more dangerous than training (some of which you mentioned):
Drugs are easier in the sense that taking pills takes much less effort than hard training
There are many more drugs (and they are more diverse) than there are forms of training
Drug interaction is more complex and difficult to manage than mixing up types of training
The variety of things in your body that you can break by drugs is much greater than the variety of things you can break by training
Because of the point above, drugs are more likely to cause hidden damage which you are not aware of until it’s too late
Drugs are generally (but not always) faster acting giving you less time to detect a problem and correct it
I can probably produce more if I work at it :-)
If I understand your argument, it’s that some athletes will have less of a safeguard, not that doctors are not much of a safeguard in general.
My point is that “someone with a medical degree is around” doesn’t actually provide much safety by itself—it all depends on the context. A wealthy US doctor (who can be sued, stripped of a license, kicked out of his country club, etc.) has a very different set of incentives than some guy with an M.D. in a poor country whose only chance of success in life is to extract superhuman performance out of a sports team he’s advising.
the athletes would still be taking on unacceptable risk
Again, it’s up to the athlete to decide which risk is acceptable and which is not. My concern is with a system of incentives, not with whether an individual athlete will make a “right” or “wrong” decision.
provided that the level of risk is equivalent for both
I think I’m more suspicious of long-term costs for short-term gains, rather than risk levels...
You make fair points, though ultimately I’m not convinced that legalizing at least certain performance enhancing drugs will lead to problems worse than that which can be found via bad training.
I’ll be thinking about this and might change my mind.
I can think of a variety of ways in which drugs are more dangerous than training (some of which you mentioned):
Drugs are easier in the sense that taking pills takes much less effort than hard training
There are many more drugs (and they are more diverse) than there are forms of training
Drug interaction is more complex and difficult to manage than mixing up types of training
The variety of things in your body that you can break by drugs is much greater than the variety of things you can break by training
Because of the point above, drugs are more likely to cause hidden damage which you are not aware of until it’s too late
Drugs are generally (but not always) faster acting giving you less time to detect a problem and correct it
I can probably produce more if I work at it :-)
My point is that “someone with a medical degree is around” doesn’t actually provide much safety by itself—it all depends on the context. A wealthy US doctor (who can be sued, stripped of a license, kicked out of his country club, etc.) has a very different set of incentives than some guy with an M.D. in a poor country whose only chance of success in life is to extract superhuman performance out of a sports team he’s advising.
Again, it’s up to the athlete to decide which risk is acceptable and which is not. My concern is with a system of incentives, not with whether an individual athlete will make a “right” or “wrong” decision.
I think I’m more suspicious of long-term costs for short-term gains, rather than risk levels...
You make fair points, though ultimately I’m not convinced that legalizing at least certain performance enhancing drugs will lead to problems worse than that which can be found via bad training.
I’ll be thinking about this and might change my mind.